The Porcupine's Quill

04/29/2025

"I learned that novel writing is untangling Christmas lights, it’s doing a puzzle with pieces from different boxes, it’s jumpy footage of a man spinning plates. It’s thinking you see UFOs in the sky when it’s just satellites."

Open Book has posted an interview with Danny Jacobs about his new novel, The Ignis Psalter.

You can read the whole interview here: https://open-book.ca/News/Danny-Jacob-s-Debut-Novel-is-a-Genre-Bending-Gothic-Fairy-Tale

You can get your copy of the novel here: https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles/products/the-ignis-psalter

04/23/2025

Our Spring 2025 newsletter is out! Sink your teeth into these new releases and event announcements!

Jessica Popeski's the problem with having a body unites intersectional ecofeminism, epigenetics, and the inheritance of fractured, grandmaternal generational lines, chronicling experiences of moving through the world with dis/ability and anorexia.

04/14/2025

New releases Speech Dries Here on the Tongue and I used to live here were featured on the CBC Books Spring Poetry Preview!

Get your copies here: https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles

03/18/2025

‼️PREORDER ALERT‼️

Guy Elston's (@) debut full-length collection of poetry, The Character Actor Convention, forthcoming in fall 2025, is now available for preorder – https://theporcupinesquill.com/products/the-character-actor-convention.

A pumpkin writes a letter to his father. A sheep recalls a revolution, and love. Hydrogen pens a tell all exposé of Oxygen. The Stick Insect Orders His Tomb. Napoleon counts waves and cheats at cards. A sunflower seeks answers – why sun? A crow considers children in this cruel, spiky world. And all the while, character actors gather for the endless convention...

Guy Elston’s debut is a curious smorgasbord of personas, voices and (un)natural perspectives. Through impossible encounters and strange viewpoints an insistent, ever-shifting ‘I’ questions its relation to itself. Wist, wit, and obsession rise like tides, are forgotten, and start fresh. Authenticity is always just round the corner.

The Character Actor Convention is not urgent, timely or topical. It’s something else.

02/06/2025

Speech Dries Here on the Tongue, a collection of poetry on mental health and climate change edited by Hollay Ghadery (), Rasiqra Revolva, & Amanda Shankland, forthcoming this spring, has been featured in Quill & Quire!

You can check it out here – https://quillandquire.com/omni/2025-spring-preview-short-fiction-and-poetry/.

And you can preorder your copy here – https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles/products/speech-dries-here-on-the-tongue.

01/25/2025

‼️New release alert ‼️

Ayaz Pirani's () new collection of short stories, Death to America, is now officially available!

The stories follow a cast of colourful characters as they navigate the borders and fringes of western empire. In the first story, “Battle of Waterloo,” Danju is obliged to choose sides in the struggle between disco and rock and roll, and in the last story, “Brief Survey of Coloreds in the Rift Valley,” Nunu’s feeble crush on his grade-school librarian spins out a second post-colonial yarn. The youngster Aqbal, in “The Lyric,” is rescued by racism, and in “They’ve Forgotten That I’m Not There,” the small-time fence, Mohan, observes the narrow path. And sometimes you get to start over, as Gently discovers in “Kitchener, née Berlin.” Other characters include Arf, Fruq, Eerfal, Salty, the East African dandies Sur and Nur, and the sparring teenagers Umed and Frenni.

You can get your copy of the book here – https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles/products/death-to-america.

01/24/2025

Joanna Cockerline's debut novel, Still, is now available for preorder.

Still is the story of Kayla, who lives and works on the streets of Kelowna, Canada, and of Little Zoe, a woman working in the s*x trade who is missing. Set in a vibrant and diverse community of people living unhoused, the novel explores s*x work, street life, the opioid crisis, what it means to survive, and what it means to find a home—especially in one’s self.

You can find out more about the book or preorder your own copy here – https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles/products/still.

Still is the story of Kayla, who lives and works on the streets of Kelowna, Canada, and of Little Zoe, a woman working in the s*x trade who is missing. Set in a vibrant and diverse community of people living unhoused, the novel explores s*x work, street life, the opioid crisis, what it means to surv...

01/22/2025

01/22/2025

rob mclennan has reviewed Matthew Gwathmey's recent collection of poems, Family Band.

mclennan writes, "Through short, sharp lyrics, Gwathmey swirls together a mixtape’s-worth of earworms and experience, documenting road trips, birdwatching, visual art, nature walks and playing music, a broadband of all that circles the domestic of family life, rippling quietly outwards."

You can read the complete review here – https://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/01/matthew-gwathmey-family-band.html.

You can get your copy of Family Band here – https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles/products/family-band.

11/05/2024

Join Adam Lindsay Honsinger as he launches his new novel, Giving Up the Ghost, on Thursday November 14, 7:00 PM, at the ANAF in Guelph.

You can get a copy of Adam's book here – https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles/products/giving-up-the-ghost.

He'll be joined by two Gordon Hill press authors, Hollay Ghadery, reading from her new collection of short stories, Widow Fantasies, and Rhonda Waterfall, reading from her novel, Sombrio.

10/29/2024

Danny Jacob’s The Ignis Psalter is now available for preorder!

Find it here: https://theporcupinesquill.com/collections/new-titles.

10/10/2024

‼️TOMORROW‼️

Join Jim Johnstone for the launch of Bait & Switch, his new book of poetry criticism. Join Jim, as well as Victoria Mbabazi, Nisa Malli, and Candace de Taeye on Friday October 11 at 7PM at The Bookshelf in Guelph to celebrate its release with a reading and signing.

📍The Bookshelf, 41 Quebec Street, Guelph ON
October 11, 7PM

04/12/2024

If you've ever wanted to know what the theme song for a scrappy indie publishing company might sound like, Marcel Gagné has harnessed the power of AI to create this jazzy little ditty.

What do you think? Catchy?

Lounge jazz song. Listen and make your own with Suno.

01/16/2024

Now available in print! Judith Nasby's KIVIOQ'S JOURNEY takes you on a guided tour of the Art Gallery of Guelph's beautiful Donald Forster Sculpture Park.

https://porcupinesquill.ca/bookinfo6.php?index=381